A Fine Mess by Breanna Hughes

Harper Foley’s life is a manageable mess. When you first meet her you find out that both of her parents were tragically killed in a car accident a few years prior. This life changing incident sent her, as a young adult, on a trajectory of change. First, Harper becomes the guardian to her sister Emily, who happens to be a seventeen-year-old with a serious drug problem. Emily runs away from home, and Harper spends years searching for her to no avail. Second, at the time of her parent’s death Harper is engaged to a nice guy named Finn. They have been together years, in Finn’s mind, they were blissfully happy, to Harper something quintessential was missing. So, Harper breaks in off one week before the big “I do” moment. Ouch! Third, well… let’s get to that in a minute.

Harper, a college graduate, spends her days working at a bookstore. Her career is unfulfilling to her. She spends all of her other time devoted to her music. This singer/songwriter is trying to break out in LA’s music scene, and she does okay playing at local bars and coffeehouses. You feel a sense of sadness and despair as you read Harper’s story, but for quite awhile I wasn’t sure where we were headed with her.

So Finn is still an integral part of the story as well. He is seeking therapy because he cannot get over Harper. She has wrecked his heart but he takes any sign from her, even a simple phone call as a chance to win her back.

Then you have Kiley. Kiley, Haper’s ride-or-die best friend, is a drop dead gorgeous tornado. She blows in and out of guy’s bedrooms like there’s no tomorrow. To say there is a revolving door would be an understatement. A product of an unloving home, Kiley uses sex as a way to forget. This is fine and dandy, do what you want, but every action has consequences.

What consequences, you ask? Well it takes a while to get to this point, for a long time I was somewhat as lost as you are right now. So big reveal, Harper has a thing for her BFF. Harper, lets no one in on the big secret. Not even a hint that she might be looking at girls in a different way. She internalizes everything and lets Kiley’s promiscuity eat away at her.

My thoughts on this one are a mixed bag. First off, I liked Haper and Kiley, and I wanted to know more about them. I was invested in those two characters. With that being said, the hooking up with random guys, and this is for both ladies, detracted from the overall love story. There were a few parts, I was left shaking my head at why would you do this! Also, I needed more from Kiley’s point of view. I felt myself wanting to get in her headspace and see why she acted and at the times reacted the way she did. I wanted more on why she used sex with random men to hide her true feelings and how that made her feel afterwards. If as the reader I could have tapped into her angst level, it would have made me feel more towards her and overall the book. Kiley’s character need more fleshing out, because she was a really, really intriguing part of the book.

Second, I really did not want to read about Finn, his story and his pseudo-romance with his therapist was distracting. I found myself trying to skip these sections to get back to the leading ladies. I didn’t know what Finn brought to the table storywise other than he’s really nice and not over Harper. I wanted more on the main characters and less history on the sub-characters, Emily was fine, Finn and the therapist, not so much.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, it does have some typos/grammar errors but I was able to move easily past them. It was not a problem in the slightest for me, but you can probably read my reviews and kill a red pen with my missed commas. With all that being said, Breanne Hughes is a talented writer. Her story, while it had a lot of moving pieces was formed well and held my attention to the end. Overall a good read, and an author I would not hesitate to read again.